CHURCH FUNDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 30, 3 August 1940, Page 13

CHURCH FUNDS

INCREASED GIVING

FOURTH SUCCESSIVE YEAR

For the. fourth year in succession there has been a substantial increase in receipts from collections and envelopes for parochial purposes in the Anglican diocese of Wellington.

Bishop Holland' reports that these receipts amounted to £18,800, being £1460 more than in the previous year, and about £4000 more, than in 1935----36. The amount received from subscriptions, about £6100, was approximately the' same as for the previous year, and made the total sum raised in the parishes for assessments and current expenditure £24,900.

Bishop Holland is also able to record a substantial decrease in the. dead weight of debt. In . 1936^7 the figure stood at £39,576. This year it stands at £25,750, a reduction in four years of £13,826. Last year the reduction amounted to about £3750. Putting interest at 4£ per cent., states Bishop Holland, the total decrease in the debt means the release of £622 per annum for present or future work, a cause for deep thankfulness. EXTRA CALLS. The total contributed by, church people during the year to what is called extra-parochial purposes was £15,250, which is nearly £5000 more than in the previous year, an increase largely due to the £3600 which the diocese raised for the Military Affairs Committee. "But to make the picture complete," continues the Bishop, "there must be added to this figure of £15,250 another figure of £10,526 paid, in cash within the year (during nearly eleven months of which we were at war) to the Centenary Fund, making a grand total of £25,776. When we set alongside this figure the amount received for parochial purposes,. £24,900, we see that for every pound which a parish raised to meet its own needs, it raised on an average another pound for the wider purposes of the Church beyond the parish, a truly Christian gropprktion. ■ • ............

- "Once again I am proud and glad that our diocese has contributed the whole of its quota plus the 12 per cent, which, the Board of Missions asked us to find. Our total gift was £3923, as compared.with £3881,1 the figure asked for, and £.3899, the amount, raised last year. So we have done better than ever, and have helped ■to secure the payment to every missionary agency supported by the province of the whole of its budgeted figure." ANTIDOTE TO DEFEATISM. Bishop Holland says that he does not claim the figures prove anything. "I know," he adds, "that what matters is 'what manner of men we are/ and, not 'how many of ,us there be,' or 'how much, we give.' I can only say that to me, the figures are encouraging and provide a strong antidote to defeatism. They also suggest that work an the I parishes goes forward and not backward and that as a diocese we may thank God and take courage."